[232] The remarks made by Mr. Ticknor on the absence of science in Spain, might be extended even further than he has done. See _Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature_, vol. iii. pp. 222, 223. He says, p. 237, that in 1771, the University of Salamanca being urged to teach the physical sciences, replied, 'Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does.'
The manner in which the Aspects of Nature, when they are very threatening, stimulate the imagination,[233] and by encouraging superstition discourage knowledge, may be made still more apparent by one or two additional facts. Among an ignorant people, there is a direct tendency to ascribe all serious dangers to supernatural intervention; and a strong religious sentiment being thus aroused,[234] it constantly happens, not only that the danger is submitted to, but that it is actually worshipped. This is the case with some of the Hindus in the forest of Malabar;[235] and many similar instances will occur to whoever has studied the condition of barbarous tribes.[236] Indeed, so far is this carried, that in some countries the inhabitants, from feelings of reverential fear, refuse to destroy wild-beasts and noxious reptiles; the mischief these animals inflict being the cause of the impunity they enjoy.[237]
[233] In _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vi. pp. 35, 36, there is a good instance of an earthquake giving rise to a theological fiction. See also vol. i. pp. 154-157; and compare _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 17.
[234] See for example, _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv. pp. 56, 57, vol. vii. p. 94; and the effect produced by a volcano, in _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. v. p. 388. See also vol. xx. p. 8, and a practical recognition of the principle by Sextus Empiricus, in _Tennemann's Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 292. Compare the use the clergy made of a volcanic eruption in Iceland (_Wheaton's History of the Northmen_, p. 42); and see further _Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 29, 274, and _Tschudi's Peru_, pp. 64, 167, 171.
[235] The Hindus in the Iruari forests, says Mr. Edye, 'worship and respect everything from which they apprehend danger.' _Edye on the Coast of Malabar_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. p. 337.